World Leaders
Music
Medicine
Toys
Books on the Big Screen
200
Ronald Reagan won the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to this man.
Who is Jimmy Carter?
200
This famous British frontman was murdered on December 8, 1980 in New York City.
Who is John Lennon?
200
This medical device was first successfully implanted in a human in 1982.
What is an artificial heart?
200
This toy, a best-seller of 1985 and 1986, featured a talking bear known as an Illiop.
What is Teddy Ruxpin?
200
This 1986 Steven King novel has only 2 letters in its title. A penny wise or a pound foolish?
What is It?
400
The Ayatollah Khomeini authorized the seizure of a U.S. Embassy on November 4, 1979, which lasted into early 1981 in an event known as this.
What is the Iran Hostage Crisis?
400
The image shown here is part of the album cover of their 1987 debut album, Appetite for Destruction.
Who are Guns 'N' Roses?
400
The World Health Organization declared the world free of this disease on May 8, 1980.
What is smallpox?
400
In 1982, Mattel released He-Man, a 5.5” tall action figure, who was a member of this group.
Who are the Masters of the Universe?
400
This author’s best-selling 80’s novels include Clear and Present Danger (1989), Patriot Games (1987), and my personal favorite, The Hunt for Red October (1984).
Who is Tom Clancy?
600
This title, given to the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, comes from a combination of the Mongolian word for “ocean” and the Tibetan word for “guru”.
What is Dalai Lama?
600
As of June 6, 2024, this 1983 release was the top streamed song of the 1980’s on Spotify with over 2.1 billion streams—that’s a lot of lung work!
What is "Every Breath You Take"?
600
In 1982, a series of poisoning deaths in Chicago resulted from this drug being laced with potassium cyanide.
What is Tylenol?
600
Nintendo released Famicom, the predecessor to the original Nintendo Entertainment System, in Japan in 1983 with this as its first game.
What is Donkey Kong?
600
Adapted into a television series in 2016, this 1985 Margaret Atwood novel depicts a dystopian America post-2nd Civil War in which fertile women are forced into pregnancies.
What is The Handmaid's Tale?
800
Dubbed the “Iron Lady”, she was the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century (1979-1990).
Who is Margaret Thatcher?
800
Her 1981 hit spent the most weeks (10) atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart of any song in the 1980’s.
Who is Olivia Newton-John?
800
Developed by Eli Lilly and Company in 1972 and first released for medical use in 1986, this drug is still in use by over 4 million patients in the US today.
What is Prozak?
800
These toys, featured in McDonalds Happy Meals in the late 1980’s came flocked with a felt-like texture.
Who are the Berenstain Bears?
800
Alice Walker became the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for this 1982 novel which Steven Spielberg later adapted into a film featuring Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg.
What is The Color Purple?
1000
Known for his signature birthmark, this man served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until it dissolved in 1991.
Who is Mikhail Gorbachev?
1000
Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit “Billie Jean” spent the most weeks at #1 on the charts of all of his songs, but it was this 1995 song which hit #1 the quickest of all of his—it debuted there.
What is "You are Not Alone"?
1000
Ryan White was an American teenager diagnosed with AIDS in December 1984, which he contracted from blood transfusions he was receiving to treat this disease.
What is hemophilia?
1000
These collectibles represented a fictional rhythm and blues animated musical group.
What are the California Raisins?
1000
This 1980 Robert Ludlum novel, the first in a trilogy that inspired a series of movies more than 2 decades later with the same titles, is about an assassin with amnesia.
What is The Bourne Identity?